The Alawites emerged in the 9th century. Led by Muhammad ibn
Nusayr, they broke with the Shi‘ites, who now form majorities in Bahrain,
Lebanon and Iran,
embracing doctrines that remain largely obscure to this day. For centuries the
Alawites were marginalized, deemed heretics by the larger Islamic community. To
avoid persecution, they established villages in the remote mountain chains of Lebanon,
Syria and Turkey,
far from the coastal areas and plains dominated by Sunnis. When the French
moved to give Syria
independence, some Alawites agitated for their own state — in vain. However, in
1963, Hafez Assad, an Alawite, along with two other military officers, brought
the sect to power in Syria.

The Alawites, also known as the Alawis, appeared to coalesce
around the new regime, which promoted members of the sect to positions of
influence and power in the government and, more importantly, the military. When
Hafez Assad died in 2000, his son Bashar Assad succeeded him as President.
Since March 2011, Bashar Assad has been trying to suppress an uprising that has
become a civil war. For the most part, his fellow Alawites have stuck by him in
the increasingly bloody fighting. But not all.

Sect members are increasingly breaking rank, as defections
swell along with mounting uneasiness about the government’s crackdown against
what started as a peaceful protest movement.

Captain Umar in Syria
is a rebel fighter and an Alawite, and he considers Assad a “butcher.” The
officer no longer believes the regime’s propaganda and says he abandoned his
unit after the government began shelling civilian neighborhoods in his
hometown. But Umar says it is Assad who is injecting the conflict with a
sectarian hue.

“Bashar is telling us the Sunnis will slaughter us,” he says
via Skype from Syria.
“He is scaring Alawis and pushing them to the edge. This is why the army is killing
the people in the street. They are scared the Sunnis will massacre us.”

Umar says that it was the military’s daily shelling of
civilian areas that pushed him to defect. “I just couldn’t see Syrians dying
anymore.” He refuses to reveal how many Alawite officers have defected, but he
does say the “number is significant.”

Others with ties to the security forces have also turned
their back on the Alawite leadership. Luban Mrai’s father is a senior leader in
the paramilitary organization known as the shabiha that targets
civilians. She recently left the country after experiencing “serious moral and
ethical dilemmas” stemming from the targeting of civilians. Today she resides
in Istanbul, trying to mobilize
support for the rebels. “The regime is using our religion for political ends,”
she explains in a phone conversation. “Alawis are killing Syrians for no
reason. This is wrong.”

Leading Alawite intellectuals have abandoned the regime as
well. Rasha Omran is one of Syria’s
better-known poets and has been invited to read her poetry at literature
festivals throughout Europe. Since the beginning of the
uprising, she has lent her voice and pen to the cause. Omran announced her
support of the revolution within days of its eruption on her Facebook page. She
marched in protests and spoke out against Assad. “This is a dictatorial
regime,” she said in a phone call from Egypt.
“How can I support a government that kills its citizens?”

Omran sees herself as a Syrian rather than as an Alawite.
She emphasizes that the country is composed of a number of minorities whose
identity is shaped by the larger Syrian state. She believes Assad and his inner
circle are destroying this delicate mosaic by stirring up ethnic hatreds. “We
are all Syrians. But Assad is working to demolish our country.”

Omran wanted to support the revolution by remaining in Syria.
But her vocal protests embarrassed a regime trying to project sectarian unity.
Because she belongs to a respected Alawite family, the government risked an
Alawite backlash if it arrested her. Instead, she says, intelligence agents
pressured her to leave the country in a series of visits to her house. She
finally left Syria
at the beginning of the year.

Key Syrian defector Gen Manaf Tlas has hinted that French
secret agents helped him flee Syria
in early July.

He said French "services" had helped him escape
but refused to be drawn on how, only thanking the French government.

He warned that if the Damascus
regime was subjected to more pressure, it could resort to using chemical
weapons.

Gen Tlas was speaking from his refuge in Paris
to interviewers from BBC Arabic and French
news channel BFMTV.

His defection was seen as a major blow to the Damascus
government.

Not only did he command the elite 10th Brigade of the
Republican Guard, but his father Mustafa Tlas served as defence minister for 30
years and was a confidant of Hafez al-Assad, the president's father and
predecessor.

Gen Tlas has been touted as a potential figurehead for the
opposition but many reject him as too deeply compromised, reports the BBC's
Arab affairs editor Sebastian Usher.

'Dangerous crossroads'

Gen Tlas would not specify exactly which French organisation
had assisted his escape, saying he feared he could endanger those who had
helped him.

New UN-Arab League envoy to Syria,
Lakhdar Brahimi, admits his task is a daunting one

As well as French groups, Gen Tlas said the Free Syrian Army
had helped him escape "from a distance".

He warned the regime - under pressure - could resort to
using chemical weapons "in limited areas", adding: "If they used
tanks and warplanes against civilians what would keep them from using anything
else?"

Syria
is at a "dangerous crossroads", Gen Tlas warned, and he urged the
international community to "focus all its efforts to draft a real road map
to get Syria
out of this crisis".

But he said he was "of course against foreign
intervention of any shape or form in Syria",
saying the Syrian people had to "achieve their own victory" and the
international community could only help by "putting a new strategy for the
revolution".

The question of foreign intervention has divided the UN over
Syria, with Russia
and China
refusing to back UN sanctions against their ally.

The new UN-Arab League envoy to Syria,
Lakhdar Brahimi, began his first mission on Monday with a visit to Cairo,
and is due to visit Damascus in the
coming days. But he has acknowledged the difficulty of the mission which
defeated his predecessor, Kofi Annan.

Gen Tlas suggested that his "defection" from the
government had begun long before he physically fled his country when he
withdrew to his office, alienated by the authorities' violent response to
protests.

"On the third month of the revolution, I defected from
the regime," he said.

"I met demonstrators and rebels, listened to their
demands and felt that the regime is not willing to change.

"I felt that the regime was lying to the rebels and was
searching for shortcuts. I withdrew to my office, did not listen to anyone and
decided to defect and help the rebels."

Conference proposal

Gen Tlas said many of the rebels he had met had been
"imprisoned, murdered or tortured as a result of making real humanitarian
demands".

He urged his former friend, President Bashar al-Assad, to
give up power not just for Syria's
sake, but for that of his family.

On Monday, it emerged that Russia
was proposing organising a conference bringing together "all the
players" of the deadly Syria
conflict, including opposition groups, ordinary citizens and the ruling regime.

In an interview scheduled to be published by leading French
daily Le Figaro on Wednesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov
reportedly said the conference would be organised along the lines of the Taif
conference that ended Lebanon's
civil war in 1990.

According to the UN, more than 18,000 people have been
killed since the conflict began in March 2011. Activists put the death toll at
23,000.